One in five Irish express anti-Semitic attitudes

A new survey finds 20% of Irish agree with anti-Semitic stereotypes.Getty Images/iStockphoto

A recent global survey found that one in five Irish adults believe in anti-Semitic stereotypes.

The ADL Global 100 survey, conducted by the Anti-Defamation League in 120 countries around the world, surveyed over 53,000 adults. Participants were asked to rate the veracity of a number of stereotypical statements, such as “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country,” “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust,” and “Jews think they are better than other people.”

In Ireland, 20 percent of those surveyed answered “probably true,” in response to the majority of the survey’s questions.

Fifty-two percent said it was ‘probably true’ that “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country.” Thirty-percent of Irish participants agreed that “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust,” while 28 percent said it was ‘probably true’ that “Jews have too much power in the business world.”

These results place Ireland roughly in the middle range of anti-Semitism, when compared with the other countries surveyed. The world-wide average was 26 percent. Ireland’s closest neighbor, the UK, ranked significantly lower, at eight percent. The West Bank and Gaza ranked the highest, at 93 percent, while the country with the lowest percentage was Laos, at 0.2 percent.

Ireland’s Jewish population has historically been very small, reaching close to 5,500 at its peak in the 1940s and is currently at 1,984, according to the 2011 census.

Dublin’s Portobello neighborhood was once a strong Jewish enclave and is today home to the Irish-Jewish Museum.

A new survey finds 20% of Irish agree with anti-Semitic stereotypes.Getty Images/iStockphoto